By admin 
Before you leave, take a step back and ask yourself the following question: “How do I want to rest during vacation? » I know this question may seem trivial, but if you don’t take the time to ask yourself, you risk not fully resting during your leave.
I encourage you to have this discussion with your family (or people traveling with you) so that you are all on the same page. If, in your mind, you dream of spending your days reading on the terrace while your partner plans to explore the city you are visiting on foot, your vision of relaxation is not the same. The danger is that if you are the type who likes to please others, you will live your vacation in other people’s shoes and the day before you return to work, you will realize that in the end, you did not do what you wanted. you wanted.
This reality can also become more complex if you have children, so I will give you advice based on my own experience. On a trip we took to Arizona when my son was only 7 months old, I ended each day with a great feeling of frustration. For what? Because my days weren’t going the way I wanted, especially because I couldn’t get the rest I wanted. After a few days, I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t let this frustration color my trip, so I proposed this to my partner: for each day of our trip, we would give each other a full hour of personal time. From that moment on, my vacation truly became a pleasant and relaxing vacation. I could therefore leave for an hour each day, without guilt, in a quiet place in the resort where we were in order to read peacefully without being afraid of being disturbed. As I write these lines, I still feel the sweet emotion of relaxation that I felt during these holidays.
Before I wrap up on this, I’d like to add something important: Although it may seem counterintuitive, rest and relaxation are key to your productivity. Your body and brain need to regenerate, and it is through these moments of relaxation that they can achieve this. So yes, even if you’re super busy, you’re the CEO of a startup company, or you just don’t have the time, not only are you allowed to take a vacation, but it’s essential. But a vacation without preparation may not be optimal. This is why the “before” is one of 3 stages of preparation to truly relax during the holidays.
Plan your departure .
If you go on vacation, it is because you are necessarily leaving some kind of job, like your job for example. My advice is this: don’t wait until the last minute to delegate or postpone tasks that cannot be done before the holidays. Depending on the projects you are working on or the tasks you have on your schedule, plan your departure ideally 4 weeks in advance. Inform the people who work with you, become aware of your different deliverables and remain realistic. There will always be more to do, so avoid putting unnecessary pressure on yourself to do EVERYTHING before you leave.
To help you see clearly the things that need to be done and, above all, to avoid unnecessary stress a few days before your vacation, do the following. Make a list of all your projects and for each of them, write down the associated tasks. Then ask yourself what must be completed before your vacation. Ask yourself twice ;-). Then, for the weeks before your departure, put these tasks on your schedule or delegate them. Of course, if you are working with a timeline or a Gantt chart for example, this analysis will be done very easily! Planning your departure is done in advance .
Plan your return .
Of the 3 steps to go on vacation with peace of mind, this is in my opinion the most important! You will probably agree that the last week before going on vacation is normally busy. The idea of planning our return is therefore the least of our worries, because the reality is that we are often chasing our time during this last week.
I know that when we go on vacation, we often don’t really want to think about returning, but if you had just one piece of advice to take away from the blog post The 3 stages of preparation to truly get away from it all during the holidays , it would be this one. On the last day before leaving, set aside an hour in your schedule to plan your return week, exactly as if it were the following Monday. I can already hear your questions :-). Yes, there will be unforeseen events and yes, there will be changes while you are away. However, the simple act of planning your return will allow you to relax more during your leave and will also prevent you from experiencing the “blues” of returning to reality.
So plan your return tasks carefully and trust yourself. If you can afford it, especially for those who can delegate less and who manage a large number of emails, notify your customers that you will come back a day later to take advantage of a first day where you can calmly get back up to date without feeling the pressure to respond to everyone at the same time. Having experienced it last year, on the Sunday before starting again, I had absolutely no idea what was planned for the next day, but knowing that everything was organized, I felt completely in control!